1,000 Kilometers With an Electric Microlight

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Materials, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 2 Comments

Your editor is publishing this multi-country adventure from Daniel Ramsier recounting of his 1,000 kilometer trip in an electric microlight, with some of his outstanding photographs.  It’s a truly epic outing that shows ingenuity, great engineering, and a resolute spirit combined to show how much can be accomplished with a very small material involvement.  The story highlights Paul MacCready’s advice to do more with much less. Regardless that it was leisurely journey, averaging 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) per day, it was still a test of Daniel’s hardihood and his craft’s reliability. Yes, it’s definitely possible to fly and travel “electric”. Taking off from Gruyère (LSGT) in Switzerland on July 15, I arrived in Kyjov in the Czech Republic in 40 days and 22 legs, invited by Marek Wolhard, a paraplegic 3-axis ultralight instructor pilot who had followed @handiflight around the world. My nano-trike was developed by Ales Hubacek of skyjam-aircraft.com in Zurich. Light and strong, made entirely of titanium, its very …

Comco Ikarus Flies on Electric Power

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Relatively unknown to American pilots, Germany’s largest ultralight aircraft manufacturer, Comco Ikarus in Mengen, was able to announce the first flight of its successful two- seater C42 / CS as an electric version just before the start of AERO, the annual aircraft exposition in Friedrichshafen. Comco’s C42 CS forms the basis for the electric version.  The avgas-powered version flies with either an 80-horsepower or 100-horsepower Rotax engine, the electric version with a 32-kilowatt (50 horsepower) electric motor from Geiger Engineering.  Geiger’s power package includes their dedicated controller, control lever, and monitoring instrument.  Four battery packs, 15 kilograms (33 pounds) each, power the prototype, but production versions will have six packs, enabling flight times of up to 90 minutes. The first electric flight was completed by Comco Ikarus’ managing director Horst Lieb on April 15, 2018.  Comco notes, “The complete electrical unit with batteries is only marginally more expensive than the combustion version.” The aircraft, with a span of 8.71 meters (28.6 …

Acentiss Electric Dual-Rotor Aviation Motor

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Acentiss is a German engineering and consulting firm specializing in medicine, aerodynamics, and recently, the creation of two small electric motors for light aircraft.  Located almost symbolically between Robert Koch Strasse (Nobel Prize in Medicine) Max Plank Strasse (Nobel in Physics), and EinsteinStrasse (Nobel in Physics) in Ottobrunn, the company not only provides design services for wind turbines and their components, assistance with process flows for the manufacture of medical equipment and devices, and consultancy services for the automotive and aeronautical industries, but has created components for use on light aircraft and unpiloted aerial systems. Their motors, developed with assistance from Geiger Engineering, look a great deal like the HP-25D from that company, often seen flying on PC-Aero aircraft.  The two motors, both 218 millimeter (8.6 inches) in diameter, produce a maximum of 32 kilowatts (42.8 horsepower) or 40 kW (53.6 hp).  The smaller motor can produce 25 kW (33.5 hp.) continuously at a leisurely 1,950 rpm, and the larger …